And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen!- And did those feet, William Blake

mandag 24. september 2012

Joseph Brodsky in York

In a previous blogpost I
wrote about my writer's tryst, where I spent time working with my MA
thesis this summer. Of course, no work can be properly done without
the sufficient amount of leisure so in-between work I relaxed with a
book of verses by Joseph Brodsky, well, two actually. These books
were selected translations in Norwegian, beautifully crafted, and I
was of course immediately taken with Brodsky's elegy for W. H. Auden,
particularly because it evokes my beloved city of York, Auden's
birthplace. This poem is a part of a sequence titled In England
and it is taken from Collected Poems in English, a book in the
series Oxford Poets by Carcanet (2001). The poems in this book have
been translated either by Brodsky alone or in cooperation with
others. It is not specified which alternative applies for In
England.

York:
In Memoriam W. H. Auden

The
butterflies of northern England dance above the goosefoot

below
the brick wall of a dead factory. After Wednesday

comes
Thursday, and so on. The sky breathes heat;

the
fields burn. The towns give off a smell of striped

cloth,
long-wrapped and musty; dahlias die of thirst.

And
your voice - "I have known three great poets. Each

one
a prize son of a bitch" - sounds in my ears

with
disturbing clarity. I slow my steps

and
turn to look round. Four years soon

since
you died in an Austrian hotel. Under the crossing sign

not
a soul: tiled roofs, asphalt, limestone,

poplars.
Chester died, too - you know that

only
too well. Like beads on a dusty abacus,

sparrows
sit solemnly on wires. Nothing so much

transforms
a familiar entrance into a crowd of columns

as
love for a man, especially when

he's
dead. The absence of wind compels taut leaves

to
tense their muscles and stir against their will.

The
white butterflies' dance is like a storm-tossed ship.

A
man takes his own blind alley with him wherever he goes

about
the world; and a bent knee, with its obtuse angle,

multiplies
the captive perspective,

like
a wedge of cranes holding their course

for
the south. Like all things moving onward.

The
emptiness, swallowing sunlight - something in common with

the
hawthorn - grows steadily more palpable

in
the outstretched hand's direction, and

the
world merges into a long street where others live.

In
this sense, it is England. England, in this sense,

still
an empire and fully capable - if

you
believe the music gurgling like water -

of
ruling waves. Or any element, for that matter.

Lately,
I've been losing my grip a little: snarl

at
my shopwindow reflection; while my finger

dials
its number, my hand lets the phone fall.

Closing
my eyes, I see an empty boat,

motionless,
far out in the bay.

Coming
out of the phone booth,

I
hear a starling's voice - in its cry alarm.

But
before it flies away the sound

melts
in the air. Whose blue expanse, innocent of objects,

is
much like this life here (where things stand out more in the desert),

Om meg

Norwegian medievalist, bibliophile, lover of art, music and food. This blog is a mixture of things personal and scholarly and it serves as a venue for me to share things I find interesting with likeminded people.